No, the old man did understand and gave me what he could. He did appreciate the help even though most of his family was shit. The only other person who appreciated it at all was his grand daughter. When his grandson did come by I confronted him and asked him why the hell he wasn't trying to help his Grandpa and he said he would but then was careful to avoid us after that. The man's daughter would come by, have a look and then take off. The neighbor was worse. Just came by to talk shit and berate me and and the old man saying how much better a job he could do, blah blah. Finally I had enough and told him off so he quit that bullshit.
In a way I guess I'm sort of a sucker for getting involved but I remember before my Grandpa really went down hill he was still his old stubborn self and had a shipping container on the other side of his drive way out on his rural property. He had strung out an extension cord to have lights and a bit of power out there. It was just a shit solution. I kept telling him we should put in a new subpanel and get proper power to it and he kind of agreed but kept putting it off that summer.
I finally told him I'd had enough of his stubborn attitude and procrastination and was going back on a welding assignment. I had it all set up and the day I am leaving I look behind me in the rear view mirror and he's out in the gravel driveway with a pick axe. Oh, now he gets real? I know he's play acting on my sympathy but there's a real danger he will try this job on his own and botch it with substandard work. He's done this sort of shit before when no one would help him. I've got three uncles, lots of cousins and an aunt with four kids. They all talk a big game of being there for the grandparents but never really do anything for them. I'm the one who will stop work for the summer, come out for three months to do maintenance and repairs as well as building stuff that needs done. The rest will come down for a week, fiddle around, talk about how great they are and then leave and the whole time drop hints that I'm mooching off the Grandparents while I go out and put in a ten hour day actually WORKING for them.
Anyway, I stop my van, back up and ask Grandpa what the hell he's trying to do and he says something to the effect of, "Well, if I don't do this no one will". Like we never had ten conversations about this with him putting me off.
I spend the next week digging a 75 foot trench, installing a subpanel at the meter and a breaker box in the shipping container, overhead fluorescent lighting, outlets on the side, 240 for a welding machine and a solar controlled light for the drive way. Call professional electrician to inspect and hook it up to the meter.
His appreciation was that he got you to do the work for (basically) nothing. Same with the granddaughter. A reasonable and white family would've paid a fair wage and (or financed it on credit) then dealt with the finances together afterwards.
FYI, damned near everyone is appreciative of free things. [You still have niggers, spics, and kikes who think its owed to them. ]
You have to be young (as your optimism and idealism are still really strong) as someone whose tired over the years of blowhard know-it-alls, would simply get up, smile and leave saying "then you should have no trouble finishing what I started" and not use it as an idle threat.
I'm not saying being full of optimism and ideals aren't great, I kind of envy that you have some left. I'm saying,...spread it out over those who matter most to you. Your wife and kids first. Then parents. If there's anything left...then your extended familiy...and never try and do a project alone. You have incredibly valuable information that should be passed along to your blood. That huge project you ended up doing in the shipping container was nice, but you wasted an opportunity to teach the young'ns (and maybe your uncles) how to do it as well. Maybe peak their interest or at the very least tell them what they should be looking for if they needed to hire contractors for similar jobs. Maybe they had some info that you didn't know too (it's always possible) or could look up to verify or as the contractors you call out later.
Lastly, you have to come to the realization that you can't care enough for them to care. That's not how life or people work. You have to wait until they are willing to either actually help (financially, knowledge, and labor) or it's all just meaningless talk/whining.
You seem like a stand up kind of guy whose not afraid of getting his hands dirty and your heart is in the right place. Just don't burn yourself out (and leave nothing for yourself) like so many before you have.
I only did it for the old man as he kind of reminded me of my Grandpa. In my mind, his entire family was living off him and his wife was the bitch ringleader. What I gathered while working with him is that he was enjoying sitting out on a bench under that tree but finally when the plumbing was costing him over a hundred bucks each time it had to be cleared, he realized it had to be taken out but no one wanted to help.
Later, after we were done my boss brought him by one of those large umbrellas but his wife took it away as she claimed it was against code.
A drowning man needs to have the will to swim to survive. Just breathing isn't enough.
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